Painters of Modern Life

The cute, one-eyed kitty in artist E'wao Kagoshima's See Saw Kitty, a 1984 painting on a canvas that's the exact shape of the kitty's body, is committing seppuku, or ritual suicide. It has a knife to its gut and a goodly gash is already gaping there. Kagoshima has another shaped painting in the Box's "Painters of Modern Life," too, of a pretty, pixie-haired doll in a sheer shirt who's using a knife to cut herself in half. The show also includes Juanita McNeely's soft-core 1980s paintings of built, brazen ladies and often garish work by Jakub Julian Ziolkowski and Dan Burkhart. Like some of the Box's best recent-historical shows, it's aggressive and gritty and borders on bad taste. 805 Traction Ave., dwntwn.; through May 24. (213) 625-1747, theboxla.com.
Wednesdays-Saturdays. Starts: April 17. Continues through May 24, 2014
(Expired: 05/24/14)